


Old Friends

by fhsa_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-13
Updated: 2005-07-13
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: This is just a short snippet I wrote after the terrorist attacks.





	Old Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

I'm not really surprised to find him here. After all, where else would he be but here, in this place - the best and somehow the very worst place he could possibly choose?

 

He's funny that way. So strong and silent to all appearances. If I didn't play that particular game so well myself I might have actually fallen for it.

 

But I didn't. Saw through his defenses the very first time we met.

 

He probably saw through mine just a clearly and every bit as efficiently. Not that either of us ever gives our mutual defensive shields any kind of acknowledgement.

 

No, we both have learned the hard way that to let it out into the open, to admit how deeply we hold our memories - and the pain they bring us - opens up floodgates that may never close again.

 

We each do our time in silence, pay our debts, and learn eventually to live with our pasts - and the nightmares that they torture us with most nights.

 

But this... this thing has brought those shades out into the open for both of us and, god, I don't know how either of us will handle it. Too many dead in one day - in the merest span of time - and right in front of our eyes... Like shards of glass, the pictures are burned into my brain and I know I'll never be able to escape what happened to us.

 

Of course, it doesn't just affect us - in some way, one some level, it affects everyone in the fucking country. Hell, the entire world might end up paying the price of this one.

 

I wonder how many of them will know what they're paying for, if it comes to that? When you sit down and think about it, probably a pretty small portion of the population fall into the 'I understand' category.

 

On second thought, there's no possible way that anyone can understand what happened last Tuesday. Because, in the end, it was all about hate and rage, and who can define either in a way that satisfies any sane person's comprehension level?

 

As for the insane... well, they might just possibly be the only ones to get it.

 

I'm dead tired. Dog tired, even. And, I know that he is, too. Just as I knew he'd be here tonight.

 

It's been a week, you see. A whole seven days since it happened. Since the world fell apart, right there on TV. Live and in technicolor. Planes crashing, people dying, buildings collapsing - right there in the privacy of the home - in your own living room - watch the beginning of the end.

 

Yeah, I'm more than a little morose. Trust me, if you'd just spent seven days digging through rubble, searching for survivors and only finding the odd arm, leg, picture of a smiling family, tube of chapstick or in one moment forever engraved in my mind, a rose, just on the edge of bloom - you'd be fucking morose, yourself. And angry. And hurt... Jesus! So hurt that you don't think you'll ever feel anything but pain again.

 

And through it all, I'd see him - not at MY side, but at my side, doing the same as I was doing - losing hope with each passing moment, just as I was.

 

How many friends did we lose, just between the two of us, I wonder? How much of everything did we all lose? How much more can we take, any of us?

 

Those first days there was a kind of denial of the truth. We hid it in hope, you see. We had to - there was no other way to get through the passing minutes. And each minute brings with it more heartache, though. To see strong men and women - people trained for this kind of work - breaking down in tears, weeping unashamedly as their hopes slip insidiously away... Well, I've seen it before, so has he, so have most of us working the sites - but it's been so overwhelming this time that I really don't see us ever recovering.

 

So, when we got off tonight, finally relieved of duty for another day, I went looking for him. And, like I said, here he is.

 

Sitting silent and alone.

 

Staring at the wall.

 

As he has every night for the past week.

 

I think he finds some measure of comfort here. I hope he does, anyway. The alternative doesn't appeal at all. If he comes here hoping to lose today's pain in yesterday's horrors... I'm not sure what to do, not tonight. For some reason he looks worse than I expected. Of course he's tired, hollow-eyed with weariness. Hell, we're all looking that way - have since those first moments when we rushed out to find that it wasn't a rumor, not some sick misunderstanding, but all too real and here.

 

HERE - in our city.

 

In our cities, our homes, our hearts and our memories.

 

OUR memories. This isn't the only thing we share - but years from now, this will be the big one. The one we don't talk about. Ever.

 

And that's why I'm here tonight. Why I've been here every night. Standing behind him, every bit as silent as he is, as hurt and horrified as he is, I share it with him.

 

I walk over to take up my station, and this night, for the first time, he turns to acknowledge my presence.

 

He looks at me. Nods. "John," he says quietly.

 

That's all. Just "John."

 

One word. One syllable. It means the world to me.

 

I manage to incline my head in his direction and he indicates with one hand that I should sit there with him. Carefully, I lower myself beside him and I sigh.

 

"Skinner," I finally return his greeting.

 

And we have complete and perfect understanding of each other in that moment.

 

Simple human contact is what it all boils down to in the end.

 

Tonight, in our shared silence, that's all we ever have had or will have - each other.

 

And, for tonight, it's enough.

 

Tomorrow will be here soon enough with new trials to face.

 

Old friends, memory brushes the same years, Silently sharing the same fears


End file.
